don't believe me, check out ralph peters.
our military leaders and their civilian masters at the pentagon are selling out the troops and the country. the defense contractors are running the show, ruining our nation's future standing and capability to fight the real enemies we will face in the coming years, while our troops are fighting and dying in a war they already are busy forgetting about.
This is damn near treason, as bad as the libs who demand we cut and run from Iraq.

February 2, 2006 -- IF you found your hilltop house on fire, would you (A) put out the flames, or (B) buy flood insurance? If your answer is "B," you're suited for a job in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).
At a time when our Army and Marines bear by far the heaviest load of our nation's security burdens, OSD proposes reducing the number of soldiers to free up funds for wasteful Cold-War-era weapons systems.

Our ground forces are being driven hard, with many soldiers and Marines already on their third assignments to Iraq or Afghanistan. Overwhelmingly, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps do the bleeding and dying. And even as we're able to gradually reduce our troop levels in Iraq, the need for robust land forces to cope with other looming crises is indisputable.

Yet, instead of beefing up the forces that do the actual fighting, the Pentagon self-justification process known as the "Quadrennial Defense Review," or QDR, is about to call for increasing the buy of the F/A-22, a pointless air-to-air fighter with a $280-million-per-copy price tag, while acquiring high-tech destroyers designed to defeat a vanished Soviet navy.

The excuse offered by Pentagon political appointees is that we must hedge our bets regarding a future conflict with China. But our military is already two generations ahead of its Chinese counterpart  and the Chinese don't want to fight us.

Yes, we could blunder into war, if we're phenomenally stupid (always a possibility in Washington). But our military already overmatches Beijing's  and, besides, the Chinese would fight us asymmetrically: You don't dog-fight the Big Dog, you poison his food.

OSD wants a force that's all fantasy and no fight, a military designed to cope with a threat that might come someday  if we wish hard enough  but that ignores the gory reality our soldiers and Marines are facing every day right now.

Even the one promising recommendation  to increase our special-operations capabilities  hasn't been thought through in the least.

As proposed by OSD, the Army's active and reserve components would lose at least seven of the already-lean combat brigades proposed for its future force structure. The National Guard and Reserves  who've performed so selflessly and courageously in Iraq and Afghanistan  would give up tens of thousands of soldiers.

Why? Despite the utter failure of the high-tech, from-the-skies model of war during Operation Iraqi Freedom, OSD remains ideologically committed to fantasies of remote-control combat. According to the pretzel logic employed by Pentagon civilians (and in the Air Force), if we reduce the capabilities of our ground forces, we'll have no choice but to rely on technology  thus justifying the technology purchases.

In an age when ground-force missions will only continue to increase, and after suffering chronic troop shortages in Iraq, OSD recommends cutting Army and Marine combat units. Faced with the urgent need to replenish Marine and Army equipment destroyed or worn out in Iraq, we're buying high-tech toys that have no missions.

Your tax dollars are being squandered while our troops are being betrayed.

It isn't about combat effectiveness. It's about contractor profits.

Confronted with the new shape of war, from terrorism to insurgencies, we're gutting the finest military we've ever had to prepare for imaginary conflicts designed by contractors.

The fundamental problem is that, after all the hot air on Capitol Hill has been expended, few legislators really care about our troops. They love photo ops with our soldiers, but at budget time they vote for Lockheed Martin. The average American working a construction job or a cash register cares far more about those in uniform than the average senator  of either party.

Don't expect it to make sense. Just follow the money.

In support of this massive scam, the Air Force-dominated Joint Forces Command is pushing an outdated concept that only works on PowerPoint slides. It's called Effects-Based Operations, or EBO. Originally hatched to attack Soviet-style air defenses, EBO's now being hawked as the answer to all our battlefield needs (Zarqawi's radar installations better look out, to say nothing of Osama's aircraft carriers).

Learning from Iraq? Forget it. According to the technocrats, we'll never get into a mess like that again.

I heard the same thing said after the Clinton-era debacle in Somalia. Then came Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Khobar Towers, the Cole bombing, 9/11 and Afghanistan. But those who believe we can just buy our way out of history continue to insist that perfect, sterile, high-tech wars are coming  as if the enemy doesn't have a say.

Meanwhile, with cynicism to spare, the new QDR plays a shell game, pretending that we're cutting platinum-plated Cold War weapons programs  while the plan actually increases the buys: It simply shifts the funding from one year to another.

This is disgraceful. Our troops deserve better. While every service will get its turn at protecting our nation and our interests, the gory evidence attests that our ground troops will continue to bear the heaviest burdens for many years to come. The least we can do is to provide them with the numbers and practical equipment they so badly need.

If the Democrats want a legitimate security issue to fight for in mid-term elections, the Rumsfeld Pentagon's giving them a gift. The only winners from the latest QDR are our enemies and our most powerful defense contractors  and it's getting hard to tell the difference between them.

Ralph Peters is a retired military officer and a regular Post contributor.

THis is just anti mechanization propaganda, nato. Some are AFRAID of the techno military we can build.

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What good is that techno military going to do for us in Iraq against insurgents and terrorists? Or in Pakistan or Syria? How about in Colombia or Venuzuela?

China would easily destroy our forces ability to fight by taking out our openly weakly defended satellites, our electronic infrastructure and our main platforms. Just one of the many reasons war with China, especially at this point, is just madness.

We need more boots with more intelligence support. More safeguards and new thinking on how to defend our forces assets in the computer and electronic realms. More theater missile defense. More nanosensor development. More UAV's. More B-52's. More work in improving our relations around the world to counter China's spreading influence.

Instead, let's get some more useless F-22's and the like. Its disgraceful.

What good is that techno military going to do for us in Iraq against insurgents and terrorists? Or in Pakistan or Syria? How about in Colombia or Venuzuela?

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I don't know it's capabilities. It's probably classified, no?

China would easily destroy our forces ability to fight by taking out our openly weakly defended satellites, our electronic infrastructure and our main platforms. Just one of the many reasons war with China, especially at this point, is just madness.

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So is communism. Choose your poison.

We need more boots with more intelligence support. More safeguards and new thinking on how to defend our forces assets in the computer and electronic realms. More theater missile defense. More nanosensor development. More UAV's. More B-52's. More work in improving our relations around the world to counter China's spreading influence.

Instead, let's get some more useless F-22's and the like. Its disgraceful.

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You know what works well in improving relations? Complete strategic and tactical control.

I'm confused. WHen you join the army is it a pledge to fight, unless you think we might lose?

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it is our leaders responsibility to give us the tools and resources we need to fight.

my navy doesn't need more, bigger ships. It desperately needs greater anti-submarine capabilities, battleship style platforms with heavy firepower to support marines going ashore and more UAV's to augment the carrier air wings that are going to need varied capabilities in the future, not just striker or fighter abilities.

According to various sources who've seen the QDR and talked about it to various defense magazines and journals, none of these are in the cards. They want to build a bunch more ships centered around China. Nice, really. But you can't throw all your eggs in one basket.

This is just the Navy. The concerns for the Army and Marines are way, way way beyond this and to a degree, far more serious and detrimental to national security and America's ability to handle terrorism and counterinsurgency now and in the future.

it is our leaders responsibility to give us the tools and resources we need to fight.

my navy doesn't need more, bigger ships. It desperately needs greater anti-submarine capabilities, battleship style platforms with heavy firepower to support marines going ashore and more UAV's to augment the carrier air wings that are going to need varied capabilities in the future, not just striker or fighter abilities.

According to various sources who've seen the QDR and talked about it to various defense magazines and journals, none of these are in the cards. They want to build a bunch more ships centered around China. Nice, really. But you can't throw all your eggs in one basket.

This is just the Navy. The concerns for the Army and Marines are way, way way beyond this and to a degree, far more serious and detrimental to national security and America's ability to handle terrorism and counterinsurgency now and in the future.

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SOunds like you're being pulled into internal turf battles. This argument seems to have changed slightly from the article.

Budgets and spending withing the DoD has always been a freakin mess, but this article just smears all the facts to make it look like the troops have been "betrayed". In fact, there aren't very many "facts" at all in this article.

Yet, instead of beefing up the forces that do the actual fighting, the Pentagon self-justification process known as the "Quadrennial Defense Review," or QDR, is about to call for increasing the buy of the F/A-22, a pointless air-to-air fighter with a $280-million-per-copy price tag, while acquiring high-tech destroyers designed to defeat a vanished Soviet navy.

Click to expand...

Uhh, I wouldn't go so far to call the new F/A-22 a "pointless" aircraft. Our current fighters are getting way out of date, not to mention many other countries have the same fighters we do because we sell it to them. The F/A-22 just went operational and fighter squadrons are now converting over to them. They are a badly needed upgrade to an aging fleet, and this was planned long before the Iraq war.

The excuse offered by Pentagon political appointees is that we must hedge our bets regarding a future conflict with China. But our military is already two generations ahead of its Chinese counterpart  and the Chinese don't want to fight us.

Click to expand...

Its the DoD's job to assume worst case scenarios, not to calculate diplomatic relations. We cannot foresee the future, anything can happen with China (Taiwan, Iran...), its idiotic for this writer to say nothing will happen unless we are "stupid". He is also dead wrong in saying the Chinese are "two generations behind" our military. They are gearing up for a confrontation agains the U.S. He also fails to mention the possibilties of confrontation with Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

Oh and just because he is a retired military officer doesn't mean much at all. He retired just after getting Lt.Col so I don't see how he could of had that much insight into DoD wide strategic affairs.

For crying out loud! This opinion is about as distorted as you can get. NATO, lay off the green coolaid man! You are in serious regression.

BETRAYING OUR TROOPS

By RALPH PETERS

February 2, 2006 -- IF you found your hilltop house on fire, would you (A) put out the flames, or (B) buy flood insurance? If your answer is "B," you're suited for a job in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

If only the decisions were that simple! If you live in New Orleans, do you buy flood insurance or fire insurance or both? Do you want he US military to fight the next war like we did the last one or do you want it try to anticipate what might be needed in the next?

At a time when our Army and Marines bear by far the heaviest load of our nation's security burdens, OSD proposes reducing the number of soldiers to free up funds for wasteful Cold-War-era weapons systems.

Free up funds, yes but not necessarily for Cold War Era weapons systems. Anyone here have any idea how many fighters the US has and how old they are? Anyone here have any idea how old the current maritime fleet is? Do you know why we sent troops into Iraq with the body armor they had? I can tell you the real reason and it goes something like this : "Why are we spending money on body armor for troops when we are not engaged in any conflicts and wont be in the forseeable future. The money is better spent on diplomatic efforts and foriegn aid; then we wont need armor for troops". This ring a bell with anyone?

Our ground forces are being driven hard, with many soldiers and Marines already on their third assignments to Iraq or Afghanistan. Overwhelmingly, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps do the bleeding and dying. And even as we're able to gradually reduce our troop levels in Iraq, the need for robust land forces to cope with other looming crises is indisputable.

Define "robust". Do we need 50 divisions with muskets or do we need 10 divisions with modern weaponry? Anyone here know how old the M-16 is? Anyone here know why we are using VietNam era weapons for our troops? I'll give you two guesses and the first wont count. Anyone here know why the run to Bagdad went so swiftly even though US forces were greatly outnumbered? It is because we had better weapons than those of the Iraqi army. If this country had listened to some, the US forces would still be driving WWII era tanks. We would still have a couple million folks in uniform trying to do the job that half that coould do with better equipment. Guess which I prefer!

Yet, instead of beefing up the forces that do the actual fighting, the Pentagon self-justification process known as the "Quadrennial Defense Review," or QDR, is about to call for increasing the buy of the F/A-22, a pointless air-to-air fighter with a $280-million-per-copy price tag, while acquiring high-tech destroyers designed to defeat a vanished Soviet navy.

We need those fighters because they are more versatile and provide more fire power than the current fleet of fighters. Thos high tech destroyers are being designed not only to fight a Soviet Navy but also a Chinese Navy. Guess which country has the largest sub fleet in the world...it isn't the US. It is Korea. They have lots of diesel subs you will say. Those diesel subs are far more dangerous in coastal waters than nuclear subs are...there are a lot of reasons for this fact...do some research and find out why.

The excuse offered by Pentagon political appointees is that we must hedge our bets regarding a future conflict with China. But our military is already two generations ahead of its Chinese counterpart  and the Chinese don't want to fight us.

I dont consider that an excuse. The Chinese dont want to fight us because they are not ready yet. If we stop advancing our technology, they soon will surpass us. I suppose we could wait until they are ready to fight us and then this same talking head could spout crap bout why weren't anticipating the Chinese threat.

Yes, we could blunder into war, if we're phenomenally stupid (always a possibility in Washington). But our military already overmatches Beijing's  and, besides, the Chinese would fight us asymmetrically: You don't dog-fight the Big Dog, you poison his food.

Anybody here care to guess how many folks the Chinese have in their military? Anyone here want to explain WHY our military overmatches China's? It sure as heck isn't because we have 50 divisions of musket toting Minutemen! Also, who made this guy an expert on Chinese strategic, operational or tactical doctrine?

OSD wants a force that's all fantasy and no fight, a military designed to cope with a threat that might come someday  if we wish hard enough  but that ignores the gory reality our soldiers and Marines are facing every day right now.

Here is a little factoid for everyone. The gory reality will be even worse if we don't keep the technical edge. It almost seems like this guy doesn't want the military and the defense industry to anticipate the next threat.

Even the one promising recommendation  to increase our special-operations capabilities  hasn't been thought through in the least.

So the only soldiers we are supposed to have are all going to be SOF. There is agood reason why SOF is so special. Not every soldier is qualified to be SOF so I guess we should just get rid of those. That will surely cut the size of the military down to something "reasonable". It will also pretty much make the Army non-existant. I also have to ask how this guy knows whats been thought through and what hasn't. I guess because he wasn't invited to the meetings, nothing is being done.

As proposed by OSD, the Army's active and reserve components would lose at least seven of the already-lean combat brigades proposed for its future force structure. The National Guard and Reserves  who've performed so selflessly and courageously in Iraq and Afghanistan  would give up tens of thousands of soldiers.

Those Guard and Reserve units need to be gone. They are for the most part less well trained and equipped. The argument that they should be as well trained and equipped as the active duty is just pure BS. I will give and example: there is one specific computer system (can't name it here) that requires 16 hours a week hands on training to maintain proficiency. The active duty Army has trouble doing that nevermind the Guard and reserves who train one weekend a month! The system is awesome and does things far better and faster than the old way and is extremely lethal. Would you rather have the Guard use the old "muskets" or have the active duty use the new system and not need the Guard at all?

Why? Despite the utter failure of the high-tech, from-the-skies model of war during Operation Iraqi Freedom, OSD remains ideologically committed to fantasies of remote-control combat. According to the pretzel logic employed by Pentagon civilians (and in the Air Force), if we reduce the capabilities of our ground forces, we'll have no choice but to rely on technology  thus justifying the technology purchases.

I was not aware that Operation Iraqi Freedom was a failure...neither is the US military. This guy acts like remote control, robotic warfare is a bad thing. Another little factoid for everyone: the Army is just as actively pursuing remote control warfare as the other services. Can anyone guess why? I suspect it is because the Army would rather lose a robot than a real live person. Again, this guy sounds like he would rather see bayonet charges than a single strike by a high precision weapon.

In an age when ground-force missions will only continue to increase, and after suffering chronic troop shortages in Iraq, OSD recommends cutting Army and Marine combat units. Faced with the urgent need to replenish Marine and Army equipment destroyed or worn out in Iraq, we're buying high-tech toys that have no missions.

Again, this guy has no clue. Those high tech toys are the replacement for worn out and depleted equipment. Guess why we didn't have up-armored HMWWVS when we went into Iraq. It wasn't because we didn't know about them; it was because no one wanted to spend the money for those "high tech" toys that "have no mission".

Your tax dollars are being squandered while our troops are being betrayed.

The one thing I agree with from this guy. Our troops are way underpaid and dont get enough benefits. Free college for those illegal immigrants but the soldiers should pay. Lost a limb in the war? Oh well, we'll patch you up but after that you are on your own. Killed in action? Oh well, looks like your family has to move out of government quarters, can no longer use military shopping or medical facilities and hope they have a nice life...but we do give them insurance benefits which (if) the soldier paid for that $250,000. We gave far more to those killed on 9/11

It isn't about combat effectiveness. It's about contractor profits.

More BS, in case you havent figured that out yet. Yeah I know, contractors and the defense industry are supposed to produce the needed gear for nothing and pay their employees minimum wage (those warmongering bastards!)..

Confronted with the new shape of war, from terrorism to insurgencies, we're gutting the finest military we've ever had to prepare for imaginary conflicts designed by contractors.

Too repetitive to argue in its entirety but I will say this: Requirements for fielded systems comes from the operators in the field. Yes there are some contractors who do research and development and sometimes that R&D stuff doe not work out. Thats why we experiment. It does not mean we should stop.

The fundamental problem is that, after all the hot air on Capitol Hill has been expended, few legislators really care about our troops. They love photo ops with our soldiers, but at budget time they vote for Lockheed Martin. The average American working a construction job or a cash register cares far more about those in uniform than the average senator  of either party.

Mixed signals here. if you cut the defense contractor budget, the soldier gets muskets and the airmen get biplanes...the Navy gets wooden ships for their iron men. Again, I know contractors are supposed to work for nothing. As for Congressmen caring about the troops...some do but not enough.

Don't expect it to make sense. Just follow the money.

His whole argument does not make sense, especially if you "just follow the money". It aint that simple.

In support of this massive scam, the Air Force-dominated Joint Forces Command is pushing an outdated concept that only works on PowerPoint slides. It's called Effects-Based Operations, or EBO. Originally hatched to attack Soviet-style air defenses, EBO's now being hawked as the answer to all our battlefield needs (Zarqawi's radar installations better look out, to say nothing of Osama's aircraft carriers).

I currently am working on EBO (among other things) and again this guy has NO clue. EBO is not about Soviet or any other style air defense. It is about characterizing an enemy (of any type) in ALL aspects to include military, cultural, social, religious and econmic (and anything else you can think of). Once you characterize all this and can see how it all interacts you can then decide how best to attack the enemy. Maybe we dont really want to bomb them back into the stone age when all we really ahve to do is drop some tin foil on a few power generation sub stations. By the way, if this EBO stuff had been fully developed BEFORE we went into Iraq, we might just have avoided this whole "insurcency" thing or at least mitigated it. Guess why it wasn't full implemented?

Learning from Iraq? Forget it. According to the technocrats, we'll never get into a mess like that again.

I have never ever heard that from anyone in the defense industry or the military. In fact the exact opposite is true. There is a whole lot of money, time and effort being spent to take the lessons learned from Iraq and apply them so we can do better in the future.

I heard the same thing said after the Clinton-era debacle in Somalia. Then came Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Khobar Towers, the Cole bombing, 9/11 and Afghanistan. But those who believe we can just buy our way out of history continue to insist that perfect, sterile, high-tech wars are coming  as if the enemy doesn't have a say.

Does this guy really believe that because we spend money on high tech that all those incidents occured? Imagine how much WORSE things would be if we did not have the technology we have...tens of thousand of more dead soldiers, lying on the fields of Bosnia and in the streets of Kosovo...muskets still clutched in their cold stiff hands.

Meanwhile, with cynicism to spare, the new QDR plays a shell game, pretending that we're cutting platinum-plated Cold War weapons programs  while the plan actually increases the buys: It simply shifts the funding from one year to another.

Disingenuous. Of course money shifts....if it didn't we would not be sending those uparmored HMWWVs or better body armor over there...we'd be building ten more Trident submarines.

This is disgraceful. Our troops deserve better. While every service will get its turn at protecting our nation and our interests, the gory evidence attests that our ground troops will continue to bear the heaviest burdens for many years to come. The least we can do is to provide them with the numbers and practical equipment they so badly need.

Yeah, yeah. More muskets for the ground troops...and more troops because we only have muskets!

If the Democrats want a legitimate security issue to fight for in mid-term elections, the Rumsfeld Pentagon's giving them a gift. The only winners from the latest QDR are our enemies and our most powerful defense contractors  and it's getting hard to tell the difference between them.

Pure unadulterated bullshit. Our enemies are more closely aligned with the libs and MSM...just compare their rhetoric! It is impossible to distinguish between them!

Ralph Peters is a retired military officer and a regular Post contributor.

Good thing he is retired. He sounds like a real idiot to me. Remeber those senior officers that I talked about?

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